Ramage and the Renegades

'But all my sermons -'

Ramage pictured a packet of a couple of dozen sermons, written by some hack cleric and sold at fourpence each.

'The men don't like shop sermons,' Aitken said. 'Funny how they spot them, isn't it, sir? They can tell at once whether a chaplain is talking from his heart or just reciting.'

'I'm not sure about all the men, but this captain can, and he's certainly not about to sit through a fourpenny tract.'

It was unfair to harp on fourpence, but Ramage was sure that one of the first questions asked by Stokes when he boarded the frigate was aimed at the purser - how many men did the Calypso muster? That number, multiplied by fourpence, told him how much his monthly 'groats' would total.

Aitken opened the door and Stokes scuttled out, obviously distraught at the loss of his sermons for twenty-four Sundays.

The first lieutenant returned two or three minutes later. 'I think you've squared his yards, sir.'

Stokes had been brought to heel, like a wayward gun dog. 'But,' Ramage said sourly, 'that doesn't alter the fact we've got to put up with him lurking round the ship for the next few months.'

'"Lurking" - aye, ye've got him there, sir; the man's a lurker, that's for sure. But he's the worst of the bunch; the rest o' them seem pleasant enough.'

'I'll see them two at a time this afternoon, beginning with the surveyors.'

Aitken brought in two young men whom Ramage assumed were brothers until the first lieutenant mentioned their names. David Williams, the elder, was a Welshman, black-haired and blue-eyed and with what Ramage thought of as a laughing face; Williams obviously saw the humorous side of life, while his fellow surveyor, Walter White, also black-haired and blue-eyed, came from Kettering and obviously took a far more serious view of his work and his immediate future. One could imagine his notebook showing the distance between two distant points as being correct to half an inch, while Williams would prefer rounded figures.

'Can you give us any idea what we'll be surveying, sir?'

'No, I'm afraid not. I'm not being unnecessarily secretive: we are sailing with sealed orders. But I can assure you there'll be plenty of work for both of you once we arrive.'

Williams grinned happily. 'It's our first voyage, sir, so we're excited. We're lucky it's with you, sir!'

Ramage smiled and said: 'You've heard of me?'

'I've got a copy of every Gazette mentioning you, sir.'

White said it in such a lugubrious voice that it took Ramage a few moments to realize that the young man was making a proud boast.

'I didn't realize the Gazette was so popular in Kettering!'

'Ah, no, but we both worked in the Navy Office, sir.'

'The Navy Office?'

'Yes, sir. The Hydrographer came over to Somerset Place one day and talked to the head surveyor, and we were offered this job. Neither of us is married, sir.'

'Well, I wish I could tell you more about the work. It'll be typical of the naval service, though; weeks of tedium getting there, then a frantic rush where eighteen hours' work a day won't be enough, and then weeks more tedium.'

He nodded to Aitken, and the surveyors were replaced with the draughtsmen. They had been recruited in the same way and were equally anxious to know their destination. Their task, they explained, was to take all the measurements supplied by the surveyors, mostly angles and distances, and turn them into maps for people to look at.

The last pair, the botanist and the artist, seemed at first to be an ill-assorted couple. The botanist, Edward Garret, a grey-haired man with the weathered face of a fisherman or farmer, promptly denied that he was a botanist. 'I'm a farmer who likes to experiment,' he told Ramage. 'The Admiralty asked the Board of Agriculture for someone likely to make plants grow on a barren island, and they recommended me. I'm still not sure if the Board want to get me out of the way for a few months - I'm always chasing them, you know!'

'The Board of Agriculture?' Ramage inquired. 'What does it do?'

'Not enough!' Garret said crossly. 'The office is in Sackville Street and its membership looks like the House of Lords at a Coronation - the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Dukes of Portland, Bedford and Buccleuch, and dozens of earls, among them Chatham and Spencer - you'll recall he was the last First Lord of the Admiralty. And plain politicians - Mr Pitt, the last prime minister and Mr Addington, the present one. You'd think that with such a membership the Board would be very powerful.'

'Yes,' Ramage agreed. 'Archbishops and prime ministers - they should be able to move Heaven and earth!'

'You'd be quite wrong, sir; quite wrong. Apart from Arthur Young, the secretary, they're all nincompoops. Just look at the price of flour and bread. Yet farmers feed grain to their livestock. Your father's not a member!'

Ramage raised his eyebrows. Father was notoriously a non-joiner. He would send a subscription each year but he refused to be a patron. The 'Sea Bathing Infirmary in Margate, Instituted for the Benefit of the Poor' ended up asking the Prince of Wales; the 'Society for the Relief of the Ruptured Poor' managed to persuade Henry Dundas to be their president (and thus nearly lost the Earl of Blazey's annual subscription). There was another philanthropic institution that his mother favoured, and was cross with the Earl for refusing to be the patron (but the Duke of York finally agreed). He recalled that it was 'The Benevolent Institution for the Sole Purpose of delivering poor Married Women at their own Habitations'. His mother occasionally went to their meetings at the Hungerford Coffee House in the Strand to make sure the forty midwives it employed were competent and clean.

Garret laughed at Ramage's obvious interest in the Board. 'I mention your father, sir, because he is one of about a dozen landowners I hold up as examples to the Board. And not one of the others is a member either.'

'Well, the Board must have some use, or you wouldn't be here.'

'Ah yes, sir: I owe that to Lord Spencer. He was talking to your Mr Nepean, who mentioned something about settling a desert island and needing a botanist. Obviously your Mr Nepean is not very clear about botany, but Lord Spencer understood and suggested me.'

Ramage reflected that more secrets were revealed in London's drawing rooms than anywhere else: Nepean should know better than to confide in a former minister. They were the worst gossips of all, trying to make up for the loss of power by retailing tales passed on by people like Nepean, who were adept at keeping in with anyone ever likely to get back into office.

'Don't discuss your forthcoming work with anyone, Garret; it's a secret.'

'Ah, yes sir,' Garret said, in what Ramage realized was the preliminary to anything he said, just as other men might take a deep breath, 'but planting potatoes and maize can't be very secret.'

'No,' Ramage agreed, and then added sharply: 'But where you plant them not only could be but is, so guard your tongue.' He turned to the artist, finding he did not like Garret's marketplace oratory, which seemed to be combined with a horse-coper's sharpness. 'Now, Mr Wilkins, how came you to be included in this expedition?'

The artist was young - Ramage guessed he was about the same age as himself. Curly blond hair, skin very white, eyes blue, a thin face but eager. A man who would have to watch the sun in the Tropics.

'Nepotism, really,' he said frankly. 'An uncle of mine is professor in painting at the Royal Academy. I studied under him and through him know several of our leading painters - people like Sir William Beechey, Hoppner, Opie, Zoffany and the sculptor Joseph Nollekens . . . with such friends one does not need much merit!'

'You're very modest!'

'You look alarmed, sir, but I've specialized in painting flora and fauna - and can turn my hand to landscapes, if they're needed.'